1. Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure relates to thermal transfer printing, more specifically, to a system and method for print head profiling in a thermal transfer printer and storing usage data pertaining to the print head therein.
2. Description of the Related Art
Currently, there are a variety of printing techniques to transfer ink or toner to a sheet of paper, such as liquid and solid ink printing, toner laser printing, dye-sublimation printing and thermal transfer printing. In the case of thermal printing, a thermal print head provides thermal energy to specific locations of thermal-reactive printing media such as a thermal transfer ribbon. Generally, a thermal print head has a plurality of independently controllable resistive heating elements, when activated, heat a transfer ribbon and transfer thermally reactive inks or dyes from the ribbon to the paper. During this process, the heating elements cause the ink in discrete regions of the ribbon to sublimate into a gaseous state for a brief period. The amount of ink transferred to the paper, and hence, the ink saturation or tone depends on the temperature of the heating elements.
Print heads are designed for use in specific printer models and are generally not interchangeable with print heads from other printers. This lack of interchangeability is due to printer design and operating parameters, which allow for print heads to be specifically tailored to a particular printer. Thus, all individual print heads of a particular model are designed to reliably and repeatedly produce equivalent print output when installed in the corresponding printer. However, imperfections during manufacture actually produce print heads that do not have identical characteristics and as a result have varying thermal responses. More specifically, the resistive heating elements produce varying amount of heat due to varying resistance. Thus, the individual print heads produce print output quality that is not exactly the same and only falls within an acceptable certain range.
To minimize the discrepancies exhibited by print heads, it is possible to tailor the thermal response of each print head to the printer to produce consistent high quality prints. This requires characterizing a print head and providing an individual profile tailored for the print head. This is beyond the expertise level of most end users. In addition, it requires a significant amount of time to create such a profile. Therefore, there is a need for a system which would provide a built-in profile of the characteristics of the individual print head allowing for a printer to compensate for the variations and provide a more uniform output.